Thailand - The Currency Crisis and Beyond
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Case Code: ECOA105 Case Length: 12 Pages Period: 2003 Pub Date: 2003 Teaching Note: Not Available |
Price: Rs.300 Organization : - Industry : - Countries : Thailand, Asia Themes: - |
Abstract Case Intro 1 Excerpts
Thailand has advantages of its own: it may be small, but it is a member of the ASEAN Free Trade Area, a trade block of ten South-East Asian countries with a total population of over 500m. That makes it a bigger market than the whole of Latin America.
- The Economist, 28th February 2002.
Introduction
Thailand, one of South East Asia's most important countries had seen 17 military coups (the last in 1991) since the removal of absolute monarchy in 1932. Civilian governments had often been short-lived and unstable. But the widely respected king himself had been around for a long time. From the 1950s until the mid-1990s, there had been little accountability among the country's politicians, soldiers and bureaucrats. But there had been no serious problems for the better part of 50 years as the economy grew steadily at over 7% a year. But with that economic growth came an expanding middle class that began to resent the rickety coalitions, the coups and the corruption.
In 1992, a military strongman's attempt to suppress student demonstrations and install himself as prime minister triggered off a campaign for political reform. A new constitution was drafted in 1997, just as Thailand's economy collapsed. The baht lost half its value; half the country's loans turned non performing and output plummeted. Following the Asian currency crisis, governments changed at frequent intervals. The parliamentary election in January 2001, resulted in a landslide victory for Thaksin Shinawatra's Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party...
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